Life Is A Verb Camp 2017

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“It’s A Small World” first appeared at the 1964 New York World’s Fair in the UNICEF pavilion. The exhibit was moved to Disneyland in 1966, after the World’s Fair closed.

In 1989, the world wide web was invented as an open source space of information, shared between computers and accessed via addresses and locators.

This past week, and especially this morning, the theme of the ride and world wide web’s interconnectedness crashed down on me in a huge way.

The world has become increasingly smaller over the years that the interwebs has advanced. Computers allow us to become a part of communities of like minded thinkers. We can meet and interact with people on the other side of the world at any time of day or night. We meet people and become a part of their lives and they a part of ours.

Last week, I heard of the death of a little boy who, with his family, had battled against pediatric brain cancer for just under a year. Jonny died on Christmas Eve and leaves behind his twin brother, sister and parents. They all have a devout faith, and I hope that this helps them through this time and the rest of their lives.

This morning, I read about another young man, Joe who died a couple of weeks ago. Joe fought pediatric brain cancer also. As he went into surgery a couple of years ago, his mother asked his if he was scared and Joe quoted his father and said “Fear isn’t real.” T-shirts were made with this phrase and sold. I have one of those shirts and will wear it today for Joe and Jonny.

A few minutes later, I looked at the Facebook page of BlinkNow. Maggie Doyne took her gap year after high school and traveled the world. She found herself trekking through the Himalayas, through the most poverty stricken part of Nepal. She met a little girl. Saw a need and an opportunity to change the world, or change a small piece of it. Maggie built a small home, built bigger homes, built a school, and she is still changing her piece of the world. Maggie was named CNN’s Hero of the Year for 2015.

She is well known in Nepal and women and families will bring their children to her to care for and raise. She is changing the world one child at a time. I am not sure how Ravi came into her life but this little bundle has been her heart and soul since he arrived. I am not sure what happened, how it happened, but Ravi died on Wednesday. Maggie wrote an absolutely wrenching post and the pain was palpable. I felt it down to my core. I still do. There are no words.

We love the people in our lives. The pain we feel when they died is sometimes unbearable. The interwebs brings more and more people into our sphere and we love them, celebrate with them, and mourn with them just as much as if we could sit with them, hold their hand and have a cup of tea.

The harder we love, the harder we feel loss. It seems little consolation that if you feel loss very deeply it is because you have loved so very deeply. I hope each of you loves very deeply for the days you are here and we must all help each other through what is on the other end of that love.

4AM – looked out the porthole and saw some “bergy bits” – that’s what they call the smaller bits of ice

5:45AM – “SHIT! ICE” is what I yelled and Sheila jumped up already dressed. She’d gotten up at 3:15 (looked at the clock without her glasses) and got dressed and went on deck and realized… … so she flopped back on the bed

I dressed fast and got up on deck. Folks started to emerge.

7AM breakfast – 2 groups going on the helicopter tours headed off the ship first. Town groups left next and then the zodiac cruise groups got to take our tours

9:30 we headed out for our ice cruise. Back to ship around 10:45, dropped some stuff and then took a launch to town

Walked up into town, stopped in a couple of shops. Stopped at the Inuit Cafe for a latte, it was quite good

Walked on up to the trail head at the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Did what one really shouldn’t do in unfamiliar areas and hiked alone. I told Tagak where I was going and the route I was taking and that I would return and not do the loop and please don’t let the ship leave without me, so I was covered. Walked up the hill to the gold trail

Walked up and rose over the crest of the hill to the ice fjord and all of the ice produced by the Jakobshaven Glacier. I sat for a while and had a snack (or two)

Met up with Richard and Melvina, we walked back down and decided to get lunch at the Mamarut restaurant – Musk Ox Burger! Oh, my, yum!

Walked around town looking for a power adapter for my laptop because I only had the three-pronged plug and that doesn’t work for two pronged European plugs (ultimatley, didn’t need it since I used the iPad plug thing)

Bought some herb salt with angelina seeds and took the launch back to the ship

Found coffee in the Aurora Lounge and met Tagak, an Inuit elder who worked to form Nunavut in the 1980s and 1990s. He is a wonderful, warm man who lost his wife two years ago and really doesn’t want to be on the trip but came anyhow. His first trip since his wife died. He received the of the Order of Canada in 2003

9:00AM, they call the passengers according to the colour of the dot on the back of your room key so we waited for the colour call so we can go ashore, a local guide will take us around Sismiut

Talked with Marlis, she is visiting all of the Canadian National Parks, she’s been to 34 out of 45

My colour dot is white, we were called and left the ship and joined the orange group for our tour

Walked around town for 2.5 hours, walked by the museum, the craftsman shop, yarn shop (musk ox yarn), lake, municipal centre, the area of town where the sledge dogs are kept, grocery store, fish store and then back to the ship

Back off the ship to after lunch to do some shopping, back to the yarn shop and got a pair of wrist warmers made from musk ox yarn – really soft

On board to watch the kayak demonstration – this man was amazing!

Lifeboat drill was a huge C.F. – the lists were wrong, the people, the cabins, the life boats. Here’s hoping the drill was the only time we need to do this because in a real emergency, this could be bad